The riot stuff

From debauched high school parties in Geelong to new-rock darlings: Bernard Zuel welcomes a triumphant Jet home.

JETBig Day Out, Sydney Showground, Olympic ParkToday and tomorrow at 5.15pm, doors open 11am$98Bookings 136 100Advance tickets for today's Big Day Out have sold out, but a limited number of tickets are on sale at the venue for $120

You're not a proper rock band until you've had a riot, the old-timers reckon. The Rolling Stones had theirs at Altamont. The Who, the Doors, Metallica and plenty more have had theirs. Our own Cold Chisel didn't have one, but wrote about one instead in Star Hotel - all that "uncontrolled youth in Asia".

Well, Jet, the hairiest band in Christendom outside those sons of a preacher man in Kings Of Leon, figured they'd get theirs out of the way early. So early that they weren't Jet yet, strictly speaking, and certainly weren't old enough to drink or vote.

According to guitarist-singer Cam (for Cameron) Muncey, he and good friend singer-guitarist Nic Cester may not have been part of the cool squad at their Catholic high school, but they had something better than any old blue-light disco.

"Blue-lights were before my day, but my brother, Christian, was a bit of a deft hand at the blue-light pick-up," says Muncey.

"We set up our own gigs. We were stars for a night. We were amazed that they were successful: we'd get 700 kids rocking up, five teenage girls puking out the front on the front lawn ..."

Hey! Rock'n'roll!

"Yeah," he says. "I had to get my mum to look after them, all these young girls who'd drunk too much. We had all these tough guys that we knew, older guys, to look after the door and they were very violent, over-the-top like Hell's Angels at Altamont or something.

"But then we noticed we had no female security, and the girls were running riot in the girls' toilets.

"They were shoving toilet paper down the toilets and this was some Freemasons' Hall, very conservative. We had to call our mums to come down and go into the female toilets and sort stuff out. That was our first riot."

After you've had to get your mums in to sort things out ...

"After you've had your mum tread through a toilet that's flooded with three inches of dirty water, there's nothing more hard-core."

The boys in Jet, who also include Cester's brother Chris on drums and vocals, and bass player Mark Wilson, haven't taken their mums on tour, Silverchair-style. Not yet, anyway. We'll see if they have any problems with girls running wild in New York toilets.

However, they have pulled off something almost as hard: getting attention by being nothing more than four guys from Geelong who play the kind of AC/DC meets You Am I-inspired music that was unfashionable for so long, but in the past year has become the underground noise.

Since releasing the vinyl Dirty Sweet EP late in 2002, Jet have been feted (and pilloried, naturally) by the British press, been signed up by the same management and record company as the Vines, recorded in Sunset Sound studios in Hollywood, played with the Stones in Australia, and released a debut album, Get Born.

It has been a period with its moments.

"It's still taking small steps each time," says Muncey. "When we first went out in Glasgow, we hopped up onstage, and the roar from the crowd ... you could tell it was different from just a clap. Definitely steps up like that.

"The first time we did a Liverpool [England] gig, they hated us in Liverpool. The whole [next] tour, we were like, 'Liverpool is going to be a tough one'.

"And we got there and there were 1500 kids nearly killing themselves up the front.

"There's always surprises."

It makes up for any lingering grievance from some of the more disgruntled folks back home who occasionally give them hell.

In one interview, Nic Cester told of walking down the street in Geelong and being mocked with "Hey, it's the Beatles".

Muncey is quite chuffed at the positive response Jet get when they meet Australians around the world. Yet he has a similar tale.

"In London, Mark [Wilson] decided he'd go for a walk all day - he does that - and he went all day with no hassles because London's a pretty cool, accepting city," says Muncey.

"Then he hears this 'You f---ing poofter' in this full, Aussie, horrible accent.

"He looked around, thinking he was back in Geelong, and he was in Earls Court, [which is] full of Aussies who move over there and hang out with Aussies all the time."

How could any Australian object when not since the heyday of Lillee, Marsh and Chappell has there been better Australian facial hair on international display?

"I'm not one of those," says Muncey.

"I'm the resident bald face. We'll have to get it Photoshopped in for the sake of image."